Transnistrian Issue and Moldova’s Prospects for EU Membership

Anton ŠVEС

The further the negotiations on Moldova’s accession to the European Union advance, the more pressing the issue of Transnistria’s status will be

Busy with the election campaign of its informal leader and preparations for the referendum, the ruling party has clearly put the Transnistrian settlement on hold. Meanwhile, a large number of potential presidential candidates and diverse opinions on the upcoming “EU vote” give rise to various ideas on how to approach the solution of this old problem. Some presidential contenders even dare to send quite complimentary signals to Tiraspol. Maia Sandu and her team take a wait-and-see attitude, which is due to the uncertainty surrounding the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and to the interests of the electoral strategy, which would prefer the regime of maximum silence on the left bank. In general, the PAS has been burdened with the Transnistrian problem throughout its rule. Therefore, it is probably quite satisfied with the destruction of the 5+2 format, which helped to minimize international activity around the Transnistrian region and, more importantly, to exclude Moscow from political participation in Moldovan affairs. As a result, the intensity of the official negotiation process is minimal, and it is mainly the OSCE that tries to keep it alive. As we know, there are also informal channels of communication between the two banks of the Dniester, but its volume and content are, of course, hidden from the public eye. Nevertheless, at the end of last month, the parliament passed a law that will allow restarting the work of two car registration points in the Transnistrian region with the issuance of neutral license plates. Tiraspol pushed for this for about a year. The mechanism itself remained practically inactive for two and a half years, and its resuscitation, apparently at the suggestion of the OSCE mission, is certainly a curtsy from Chisinau to show its intention to continue negotiations without aggravating the situation in the near future. Maia Sandu has not signed the law so far, so the date and procedure for the resumption of the work of these VROs are yet to be approved. If the agreement on road transport is again in force (car owners in the region show great interest in it), observers will surely look for progress and try to take advantage of the positive trend to intensify discussions about peaceful reintegration. Especially since the issue of the status of the eastern regions will be difficult to ignore in the coming years because of the negotiations on EU accession. Lately, we have heard many assessments and opinions from Brussels, including that Moldova’s European integration should not be dependent on the Transnistrian conflict and, therefore, it can be finalized even before the final reintegration of the country. It should be said that the leadership of the republic was certainly in favor of such a position, apparently expecting that in this way it would relieve itself of the settlement burden and pass this complex issue with its financial aspects onto the shoulders of the European Union. However, not all member states share the position of the Eurobureaucracy. Illustrative in this regard is the recent statement by Thuringian Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow that the continuing territorial conflicts in Moldova and Georgia preclude their membership in the EU because Vladimir Putin could allegedly ignite them at any time, especially in Transnistria, where all the weapons “that the Soviet army had in the GDR” are stored. The private opinion of a German regional politician ahead of local elections may not reflect the current line of Berlin and Brussels, but on the “road to Europe” we may encounter such views more than once. And under the current model of EU enlargement, the principled position of even one state can become a significant or even irreversible obstacle. Besides, even now both the EU and our leadership are sending contradictory signals. For example, the head of the EU delegation Janis Mažeiks mentioned in several interviews that Transnistria could become part of the EU later than the rest of Moldova, but he did not specify the conditions for such a scenario. The government assures that contacts with the regional administration are in fact already in place, but Tiraspol denies this fact. Transnistrian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky still refers to “the foreign policy course defined by the people” and again calls for a meeting “at the highest level”, i.e. with Maia Sandu. In general, this has logic, since the current situation presupposes the existence of fundamental decisions on how to deal with the inclusion of Tiraspol in the process of Moldova’s European integration. The region’s business is interested in maintaining duty-free access of local goods to the EU market, but the political elite will hardly be ready to engage in justice reform, “green transition” or talk about the liquidation of the Russian military presence in Transnistria. There are a number of countries in the EU whose individual territories are not part of a common area, for example a common market. Many states are not part of the Euro or Schengen zone. Cyprus, where a UN referendum on the unification of the island failed, provides de facto jurisdiction of a recognized government and EU structures only in the Greek (southern) part. The unitary kingdom of Denmark is part of the EU with a smaller part of its territory, without Greenland and the Faroe Islands which have separate agreements with Brussels. The situation in Northern Ireland after the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU remains uncertain. The same applies to Gibraltar, which is subordinate to London but retains trade ties with the EU. At the same time, to incorporate Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, Brussels will need more flexibility and even certain reforms, including in the governing bodies (it will be difficult to come up with additional positions of European commissioners for new members from Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans). At the same time, based on the results of the elections to the European Parliament, the readiness of the Eurobureaucracy for significant transformations is not visible. Now all participants are guided by political inertia and are not ready for adequate expertise and conceptualization of problems. As long as there is no demand in Brussels, the PAS power stays in the mode of contemplation and internal struggle for resources. Thus, Moldova is in no hurry to reintegrate, which promotes dubious speculations that postpone the prospects of the country’s unification almost to 2038 (Spanish newspaper El Pais claimed to know about such a plan, although it was later denied by the government). Meanwhile, the timing of European integration, provided that the current conjuncture persists, implies quite foreseeable deadlines – the completion of negotiations within five years and EU membership by 2030. For this purpose, it is important to keep the clients of the west in power, as well as to prevent Kyiv’s collapse and rejection of the European choice. Therefore, the authorities will have to think about the Transnistrian case and the reintegration of the region. It is reasonable to start such negotiations today, because later there may not be enough time for peaceful and elaborated solutions from the humanitarian point of view. Of course, if Maia Sandu and PAS are basically willing to make such solutions.